


The Only Reason

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, But could be read that way if you like, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, No Wincest, Prompt Fill, Protective Dean Winchester, Triggers, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 11:51:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3895306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Prompt fill from Anon on Tumblr, set sometime between Scarecrow and Faith in Season 1]</p><p>Sam and Dean are celebrating a win against a werewolf, when a guy at a bar won't take no for an answer from Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Reason

In the time it had taken to pay the bill, Sam had disappeared. Dean’s eyes flashed with ire, and stalking to the exit was all the time he needed to run the whole evening’s events through his head.

They had finished the thing with the werewolf pretty quickly. It was newly turned, and as nasty as it was, it was hardly the most powerful thing they had come across since Dean had yanked Sam back into the life. It was just a strong douche with claws, more than anything. Dean was against killing humans, of course, but he was kind of glad this guy had no longer qualified, because he wasn’t sorry the thing was dead, and that sentiment had very little to do with the size of the dude’s incisors or the fact that he was a heart gourmet. He had chosen his victims from among girls who had turned him down or dumped him back when he was just a second string defensive lineman at the local high school. Any creep who couldn’t handle a woman’s prerogative to change her mind was sort of a monster in Dean’s book anyway.

So they were at a sports bar, slightly higher level than some of the dives they found themselves in, and were celebrating their win. It was great to have Sam back in the game. He knew his brother was still reeling from Jess’s death, that he wasn’t the Sam he remembered from their years as teenagers. But getting to know this new Sam was turning out to be a lot of fun. There would never be a time when Dean didn’t feel like he was the big brother, because that was what he was. Son, big brother, hunter, lover, drop out. Those were his identifications. It summed up everything that Dean was. Those five things were his entire being, and the most important of them was big brother. But now he could finally almost feel like Sam was old enough to just be his friend once in a while, and that was both a surprise and a relief down to his core.

Dean didn’t have friends. He had hookups with women after hunts. Sometimes, rarely, there were other hunters he ran into on the job and shared a beer with after. And he had his orders from his father, which he knew were the only way John knew how to show his affection, by trusting Dean with tasks, and which he was certain he would always fulfill with every ounce of his strength.

Where was John? It had been months now! At least before, he had sent coordinates, telling Dean where to go and what his next task was, thereby telling him that John still counted on him, John still cared for him. For a long time now, there had just been silence, and it was eating Dean alive. Did Dad no longer trust him to get the job done? Had he somehow found out that Sam had ended up having to save his ass when the apple orchard cult had taken him out? He had worried for a while that perhaps John had seen his face on the television, that he had heard Dean was dead, back in St. Louis when that shifter had been wearing his skin. A small part of him had even fretted that John might have thought it really was Dean who had committed the murders, that he had lost his mind somehow. Especially when they were in Lawrence and had heard nothing in response to his calls, Dean wondered if John had cut him off entirely. Sam had been livid when he had learned that Dean had left that voicemail for their father and nothing had come of it.

“What kind of father doesn’t answer a call like that? What kind of father doesn’t come running when he hears his kid asking for help like this? What kind of father-“

“The only one I’ve got!” Dean had shouted back before he could stop himself. He had taken a shaky breath when he saw the look on Sam’s face. “Sam, Dad’s busy. He’s busy doing what we sped all the way to Lawrence to do in the first place. We thought we had a lead on the thing that killed Mom, and we dropped everything. That’s all Dad’s doing. Dropping everything to find the thing that killed Mom. And Jess too. So don’t judge him. He knows we can take care of ourselves. He knows I can take care of you.”

Sam’s nostrils had flared as he held back a sarcastic comment, but he said nothing.

Dean knew what he was going to say anyway. What kind of father drops everything, when his sons are all he has? They were John’s everything, and he had been dropping them all their lives. Dropping them off at Uncle Bobby’s, dropping them with Pastor Jim, dropping them at schools, even dropping Dean at Sonny’s, though Sam still didn’t know about that.

But Dean understood. This thing that ate up John had kept him alive all these years. Maybe the man had lost a bit of himself after all this time, but everything that was left was strength and determination. Only the weakness had been shed.

The older son simply worried that this absence was exactly about that. That John had shed Dean because he was weak.

Then he had received the coordinates that had sent them to the asylum, then to the creepy scarecrow in the orchard. Whatever John thought of Dean, whether or not he saw his son as slowing him down, as a hindrance, he still trusted him to do these tasks, and Dean had a renewed sense of self-worth. Unfortunately, it had put a strain on his freshly resurrected relationship with Sam, who didn’t see these tasks of John’s as evidence that they were trusted, that they were important to him. Sam saw it as John considering the boys extensions of the tools and weapons in his trunk. It broke Dean’s heart that he couldn’t get through to Sam that this was how his family loved one another. That the orders kept them safe and the tasks gave them purpose, every job a new chance to prove themselves as John Winchester’s boys. Dean might be a pale shadow, compared to John, but at least he was the shadow of such a great man. He could never be his own source of light, like Sam and John were, but he was content, grateful, to bask in theirs.

So when Sam’s face was lit with laughter as they traded stories at the bar, it filled Dean’s heart to overflowing. There would never be anything better than making Sam laugh. He was sure of that.

“You remember the time Dad caught you throwing shot lines with the other kids at that motel in Nebraska?”

Dean chuckled to himself. He liked that Sam thought about these things. “You mean when he threatened to beat my ass?”

“Yeah, but not because you were drinking, because you weren’t playing for money!” Sam’s hand beat on Dean’s bicep. “You were so funny, trying to figure out what you were apologizing for.”

“Same thing when he found you playing darts at that pub. Sammy,” he said in an impression of their father, “what have I always told you? If you’re good at something, never do it for free.”

Sam burst into a cackle. “Yeah, and I’m like what about hunting, Dad? When’s that paycheck get deposited?”

Dean took a long gulp of his beer, smiling through it. “God, I’ve never seen that man speechless before. Everything I could do to keep my face straight, you bastard. You are some kind of force of nature, you know that?”

His kid brother just continued laughing.

It was then that the evening was interrupted by a man who crashed down heavily onto the stool next to Sam. “Hey, buddy,” the guy purred at him. “Don’t think I’ve seen you here before. Small town. I would have noticed.”

Dean rolled his eyes. Seemed to happen every time Dean didn’t sit practically on top of his brother. Somewhere on a frequency he couldn’t see, his little brother gave off an aura alerting other men to the fact that he was bisexual. It wasn’t as though Dean never got hit on, because he did. But whereas Dean took it as a compliment even when he wasn’t interested, Sam always got embarrassed and quiet, and it always ruined the fun atmosphere he and his brother were sharing. So he turned to his drink, suddenly sullen, and tried not to look annoyed, in case Sam actually was interested. He certainly didn’t want to block Sam from having fun without him if that’s what he wanted to do. Sam might give him looks of annoyance, but he never actually kept Dean from catting around when the mood struck. He wouldn’t do it to him either.

Sam laughed awkwardly, but there was none of the brevity which had been there just moments ago. “Hey. Yeah, never been in this town before. Just rolling through town.”

“Huh,” the guy said eloquently. “Well, better be careful. There have been some animal attacks in the area. You need somebody to help you get home okay, you let me know.”

Hazel eyes under the rain of brown hair slid their gaze toward Dean. “Yeah, I don’t think there will be any more issues with animal attacks. I’ll be fine.”

The guy shrugged. He was a large man, maybe thirty years old, with a spotty beard and the beginnings of a beer gut over what was probably a decent physique a few years ago. Now that Dean looked at him, he realized the guy was not bad looking, but his sleaze-meter was running pretty high. “I’m Johnny. I know every pretty boy in town,” he drawled out, “but never saw one quite so pretty as you. Let me buy you a beer.”

Hearing his brother described as a pretty boy made Dean’s stomach lurch. If a guy found Sam attractive, fine. But the way this guy was talking made him want to break his nose, then slam the pieces back into his skull.

Sam did not seem to appreciate it either. “Listen, Johnny, I’m just going to sit and talk with my brother if you don’t mind. Thanks, though.”

It was as though Johnny had just noticed Dean sitting there. He looked at him hard, and Dean stared back evenly, proud of his own restraint. Then the man smiled, through a string of white teeth. Dean caught himself wishing there were fangs, so he could feel justified in taking his head off. “Brother, huh? That mean you’re here all alone tonight?”

The younger hunter took a long pull on his beer, and turned to square his shoulders with Johnny. “No. It means I’m here with my brother. Thanks for the offer, man, but seriously, back off. I’m just here to relax.”

Johnny put his hands up, one thumb curled around his beer, and stood. “No problem, buddy. I can take a hint.”

“Obviously not,” Dean muttered into his drink. He knew Sam was sending him a glare, but he didn’t care.

“Let me buy you a beer just for having been a dick, okay? No hard feelings. Tracey, get the guy one on my tab. What are you drinking, buddy?”

Sam licked his lips, and Dean kept his head down. He would have decked the guy already, but that wasn’t Sam’s style. “Okay. Yeah, all right. Um, I’ll take a bloody bull.”

The bartender laughed. “Brave kid,” he snickered. “Johnny, any kid knows how to shoot a bloody bull is somebody you don’t want to mess with.”

“Or somebody I really, really do,” Johnny responded with a bit of a sneer.

Dean had heard enough. He smacked Sam on the shoulder and made him look up into his eyes as he stood. “You got this?” he asked deliberately.

Sam shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Okay. I’m gonna water the lawn. Maybe call Bobby about that part for the Impala. Sure you got this?”

“Go,” Sam barked. He did not like being treated like a child, no matter how young he looked. Dean thought it would probably help his case if he didn’t wear his hair in his face all the time, and didn’t hunch over quite so much. Maybe sleaze balls like Johnny would think twice about hitting on him if he acted anything like the badass Dean knew he was.

He hit the head, then wandered through the parking lot out of the noise to listen to Bobby pretend to negotiate about a couple of rear brake shoes. Bobby asked about John, but when Dean sighed, he just cleared his throat. “He’ll be along. Off on a goose chase, and a bender, that’s all. Jackass.”

Somehow, it didn’t hurt as badly when Bobby said it. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

When he finally walked back into the bar, he saw Sam leaning on the same creep he had left him with, on the other side of the bar. A severe frown came over his face. He could see from across the room that Sam was not trying to push the guy away. It made his stomach churn up all his beer when it occurred to him that maybe Sam had changed his mind about hooking up with this piece of crap.

Dean had never actually seen Sam flirt with guys, not really. From the looks of it, it was at least as awkward and hard to watch as when he flirted with girls, except that there was more…leaning. Dean’s head tilted slightly. What the hell was going on over there?

Sam’s face was flushed bright pink, indicating to Dean that he was either very into this guy or very drunk, possibly both. In spite of his size, Sam was something of a lightweight, but Dean hadn’t thought he had drunk that much tonight. Then he remembered. Sam had ordered liquor. What had John told them? Beer before liquor? That was probably it.

He sighed to himself. So Sam was drunk and giving in to an offer of some action, was that it? His Sammy sense was at odds with that analysis. Sammy sense had never failed him before. Something about this situation was not right. But if Sam weren’t on board with this guy’s advances, buzzed or not, he could handle this guy. He could handle this guy in his sleep. So…what then?

Dean approached the bar to pay his tab, and that was when he lost track of his brother.

***

His vision was messed up. Things wouldn’t hold still. He knew he needed to get out of the bar, away from these people, but he couldn’t figure out quite how. It blared in his ears from inside his own head that he was in trouble. Separated from Dean, and in trouble. One moment he had been lightly buzzed, and then things had changed, and he was…whatever this was. He didn’t even know how much time had passed. His arms were heavier than they should be, and when a guy helped him walk by slinging one of them over his shoulders, he wanted to look at him, but he couldn’t. Wasn’t Dean. That’s all he knew. Wasn’t Dean or Dad. They were taller, harder.

Was it the hunt? He didn’t think he had been hurt, but now he felt like he was swimming through honey, and he could not even remember what they had been hunting at all. Witches. Must have been witches. And this was some spell.

“Missed one, Dean,” he huffed. “A hex bag, missed one.”

Dean did not answer, but another voice laughed. “My friend had a bit too much, I think,” the southwestern drawl reported. “Come on, Sam.”

Why did this guy know his name? Had he told him? Had Dean told him? Was he a friend of Jess or Brady’s?

Then things were quieter, but darker, and he thought his head would clear when the night air hit him, but if anything, he felt even foggier. He was climbing into something, at the guy’s insistence. Oh. A truck. Back of a pickup. That made sense.

Sam lifted his head. “How does that make sense?” he asked himself aloud.

“Don’t have to, Sammy,” the guy was mumbling. “You won’t probably remember any of it, so don’t worry about it. Just relax, pretty boy.”

His large hands blocked clumsily, but he could still feel meaty paws all over him. Dad would be furious with him for being so vulnerable. Dean would be so disappointed in him.

“Get…stop!” There was a film in his throat, and for a horrible, nauseating moment, he wondered if what he was trying to swallow was…But no. It was the last drink, some kind of after-taste and residue, making his tongue feel swollen. Hands were everywhere, and he could no longer keep up the weak shoves and kicks to get away.

The man on top of him was laughing again, and it made Sam sick to hear it. “Calm down, pretty boy. You’ll like this, I promise. I’m real good at what I do, kid.”

“Not a kid,” he spat, trying to roll away, feeling hands pinning his hips and fingers pulling at his jeans. The truck panels were obstructing his view, but he could not hear any traffic, no noise from the bar, and he wondered how far they had walked to get here.

Dad would be so angry.

The man’s hand was in his hair now, holding him prone against the truck bed. His throat was bared to his aggressor, in a way that nearly cut off his air. The man’s elbow was resting his weight on Sam’s chest, and his other hand was mercilessly clawing into Sam’s jeans. “Gonna bone you raw, kid. Gonna make you love it.”

His mouth moved independently of his brain. “Not a kid,” he rasped out again, as if that were the most important thing to say right then. His hands were weakly gripped around the man’s wrist, useless.

Dean would be so disappointed.

“Gonna give you exactly what you want, Sammy.”

All of the sudden, there seemed to be an explosion above him, and the man was torn clean off the truck, a chunk of Sam’s hair going with him. Sam struggled to push himself to sit, and crumbled off the truck bed altogether, landing in a heap on a patch of dusty dirt. He looked up to see the brutal beating the man was receiving at the hands of his brother, and all he could do was curl his lips into a small smile.

Dean. Safe now. Dean.

The last things he heard before losing his battle to stay conscious were a sickening crunch of bones and a thud, followed by Dean’s voice, low and lethal.

“Don’t call him Sammy.”

***

It had taken long into the night for Dean’s adrenaline to die down. He had driven for an hour, wondering the entire time if he should be taking Sam to a hospital instead of another town. But his brother slept more or less peacefully in the backseat, crouched with his knees shoved into Dean’s back, and he decided again and again that the best thing was just to get to a new motel or an abandoned place somewhere and hole up. Sam had awoken just once, to tell Dean to pull over, which he had done right away. Sam had opened the door just in time to vomit everything in his stomach, then had closed it again to fall back to sleep. Dean figured this was as good a place as any to stop for the night.

On a whim, he chose a state park, where he could let Sam recover in a quiet cabin without having to worry about drunks thumping into the hallway doors all night. The camp was closed for the night, of course, but that had never really stopped a Winchester. He parked the Impala in a place which would not be noticed right away, and carried their bags into an empty cabin to check it out and salt it. Then he returned to the car for his brother, heaving his bulk to the only bed in the place. He salted the doorway, and sighed.

Only then did his heartbeat begin to normalize, because only then was Sam safe.

He made Sam as comfortable as he could, pulled his boots and jeans off and washed his face, and stretched him out. Through it all, Sam slept.

When he could stand to move from his brother’s side, he went to the bathroom to wash the blood off his knuckles and treat his broken lip. He had not killed the man. He had left him a gory mess in the back of his own truck, and hoped an animal or exposure would finish the job. But he had not killed him. If Sam wanted to do it, he’d go hunt the man down and hold his arms, and part of him hoped Sam would want that. The rest of him knew he wouldn’t.

He took a shower, let hot water beat down into the back of his neck. He needed a haircut, he thought absently. When they ran into John finally, he wanted to look every bit the soldier his father expected. John had given Sam a hard time about his hair for years, but the one time he had made Dean crop it short, Sam had looked so unlike himself, and so miserable, that even John had never brought it up again. Dean, on the other hand…Dean needed a haircut.

His knuckles stung in the hot water, but they had stopped bleeding, and he wouldn’t need to have Sam stitch them. That was certainly something that was easier when hunting in pairs, treating busted fists. The first time he had hunted on his own, he had taken a gash in his face and one that nearly separated his little finger on his right hand. There had been nothing for it but to go to the hospital. Dean could take care of most things all on his own, but it sure was easier with another set of hands.

When he had dried off and dressed in boxers and a hoodie, he moved a chair to the side of the bed. He settled himself to keep vigil at Sam’s side for the rest of the night.

Dean startled awake at first light when Sam gasped sharply. He bolted out of the chair and grabbed for his brother. “Hey! Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

“Where the hell are we? Where the hell is he?” Instead of jumping to his feet as Dean expected him to do, Sam curled into himself, sitting up against the headboard with his knees pulled up to his chest. He boxed himself up with his arms around his knees.

The fear in those wild, hazel eyes slashed right through Dean’s heart. “It’s okay. Sammy, stop, it’s okay.”

“What the hell happened? Why do I feel like…” The puppy eyes that had broken Dean down his whole life turned to stare at him now. “Dean! The guy, the guy at the bar!”

“I know, man, I know.”

One of Sam’s hands reached up to his head. It trembled as it felt for something.

Dean frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t…” Sam’s fingers came away with bits of scalp from underneath his mane. “I’m missing hair.” He hissed in pain as he touched again. “Dammit.”

Guilt tore through Dean and dropped heavily into his stomach. “Jesus, Sammy, I didn’t know you were hurt. I mean, I knew you were hurt, but I didn’t know…I checked you, didn’t see you bleeding anywhere but your arm…I’m so sorry.”

“No, I’m okay. I’m okay. I just…I’m gonna be sick.”

Dean dove for the trashcan and provided it for Sam just in time. He gagged with his brother, but he rubbed the younger man’s back with his palm too. “Get it out. Douche slipped you a mickey.”

“Is that even a thing?” he choked out.

He rolled his eyes. He couldn’t help it. “Yes, Sam. Sometimes the monsters are human. You’re too trusting.”

Impossibly, Sam laughed through his heaving. “Trusting!” he wheezed. “Trusting?”

“Yeah,” Dean said firmly. His hand kept moving along Sam’s back, and he forced his voice to quiet. “You gotta be more alert.”

“Like you were in Burkitsville?”

“Like I was in…Shut up. That was a pagan cult that jumped me, not a douche in a cruddy sports bar. Dammit, Sammy, you scared the shit out of me.” Now that Sam was finished throwing up the only hydration Dean had managed to get in him all night, he put the trashcan on the floor and wrapped his arms around him. “I shouldn’t have let you out of my sight.”

“I’m a big boy, Dean. I can-“

Dean squeezed his eyes tightly closed. “If you say you can take care of yourself without my help, I will beat your ass. If we live into our thirties, I’ll still be standing there taking care of you. You understand me? That’s my job. Take care of Sammy. It’s the only reason I even have.”

Sam pushed him back and looked up at him. “Reason for what?”

He had not been paying attention to his own words, and now he ducked his head a little. “The only reason I have,” he repeated, as if it were the end of his thought.

And it was. It was the last thought of every night, and the first one of every morning, and most of them throughout his dreams. Take care of Sammy. He had failed tonight, had let him get hurt, but he could see John’s eyes staring hard at him, and could hear his voice saying the same words his father had said every time Dean had failed to block a punch or fumbled a reload or let clumsy Latin escape his clenched teeth. “You’re not done. Do it again, and do it better.”

“I’ll do it better next time, Sammy. I swear. We live long enough, I swear, ten years from now, I’ll still be the one looking out for you.”

Sam gave him that smile of his that was tainted with worry and his eyes were flicking over his brother’s face the way they did when he was thinking too much, but he nodded. “Sure, Dean. I know. And I’ll still have your back too. Ten years from now, it’ll still be you and me against the world.”

It was as though Dean had been given permission to breathe again after a long night spent struggling to fill his lungs. He knew it wasn’t true. If they ever found the thing that killed Jess, Sam would be done with this life. He knew it, but he wanted to pretend, so he did. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, I’d like that.”


End file.
